A potential sports and concert venue, banning cars from some roads into Exeter, and a bridge spanning the River Exe were among the ideas suggested by councillors discussing a Strategic Vision for the Greater Exeter Area.

New park-and-ride sites, improvements to rail, bus and road routes, and 57,000 new homes by 2040 are all part of the vision for the Greater Exeter Strategic Plan, being prepared by East Devon, Exeter, Mid Devon and Teignbridge councils.

Councillors unanimously voted that without major modifications, this council rejects the GESP vision document and expects a revised version to come to the committee that includes information about rural proofing, healthcare facilities, a sports and health vision, transport visions, energy provision, how it would be funded, and a clear series of questions that will provide a valid response.

After the meeting, a GESP spokesman said: “The GESP is an extremely important initiative and we want to ensure that it sets the blueprint for an enhanced quality of life for all our residents into the future.

“Full public engagement with the various stages of consultation is therefore crucially important and as partners we will sit down and re-design the proposed consultation document to achieve this. It may mean a revision to our timetable but we will go forward together.”

These are the seven main themes that were discussed by councillors in Teignbridge and East Devon around the GESP when it went before their committees on Tuesday.

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Cllr Phil Skinner, East Devon District Council’s deputy leader, put forward the idea of developing a regionally or nationally significant sports arena and concert venue, with a 10-20,000 capacity, within the GESP area.

Talking about the plans, Cllr Skinner said: “My own aspiration about talking to people is about what we can get something out of this for ourselves and looking at an opportunity for young people and them being aspirational through sport and music.

“I talk to many people and clubs like the Exeter swimming club about this and they say they have to travel so far away to get to the 50m swimming pools of they need, and they say why don’t we have one here?

“Why can’t we be blue-sky thinking about something like this for the region through the GESP process. I want this in our patch and not somewhere else.”

Conservative council leader Cllr Jeremy Christophers

Cllr Jeremy Christophers, leader of Teignbridge District Council, also backed the plans for the music and sports venue. He said: “There is a strong appetite that the GESP is not just about housing but retention of young people, so should expect to find the same highlights they would in the cities. It is a separate piece of work and not part of this consultation to look at the evidence of need for a sport zone and a concert venue that could host 10-20,000 in the area. We would need to make sure it stacks up financially, but it is welcomed and we think there is a need for it.”

East Devon CEO Mark Williams said that one concern has been that the GESP work hasn’t engaged the public at all, so the council have introduced something to bring it to life with the sports hub and the concert venue.

He said: “It has come from us so and we want reasonably scope it out to see what endorsement there may be for the idea.”

Greater Exeter Strategic Plan October 2018 document

BUT YOU CANNOT FORGET ABOUT GRASS ROOTS SPORT

Cllr Eleanor Rylance told East Devon councillors about the ‘myth of talent’ and that what really is important is the proximity to facilities.

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She said: “In Cranbrook, we might have future world champions sports or concert pianists, but we won’t find out and they have no access to any entry level sports facilities. Their parents will need to spend a lot of hours travelling to entry level facilities can find out if they are any good at sport. We need the facilities at an entry level now.

“A sports hub is aspirational and a nice idea, but we cannot expect elite sportsmen to appear out of nowhere.”

How St Sidwell's Point might look

Cllr Jill Elson said that the sports hub should be supported as it is the only way to force Exeter ‘to do something and come up to play’ as they let the public down by not going with a 50m pool as part of the St Sidwell’s Point redevelopment.

She said that Exeter is the only regional centre that the swimming association will support for a 50m pool, and when the city council chose not to have a 50m pool, they let down the whole of the region.

HEALTHCARE THOUGH MIGHT BE MORE IMPORTANT

Cllr Geoff Pook said that health and social care has be addressed as is the biggest time-bomb that the region has. He added: “It is not addressed, then there is no point of a sports hub as there will be no one fit enough to use it.”

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And Cllr Geoff Jung added that although he supported anything to do with football (but nothing at all to do with rugby) and the council should be looking after youngsters and encouraging them, to put a sports hub ahead of infrastructure and healthcare is wrong. He said: “It has to be lower down the priority than them. It is a wish and nice to have, but I cannot support a sports hub and concert venue from our funds ahead of health and infrastructure.”

Cllr Elson also added that the document should have greater emphasis on healthcare facilities as they are under huge pressure, while Cllr Mike Allen, when proposing to reject the document, said that healthcare needed more emphasis.

TRANSPORT THOUGH SEEMS TO BE THE BIGGEST ISSUE

Both East Devon and Teignbridge councillors raised their fears that simply adding more cars to the road was not an option.

The document states that transport investment generates significant interest and debate, and is an important element of delivery the GESP vision of an “accessible and networked city region”, while the impact of more travel will be most greatly felt in Exeter and the larger towns.

Cllr Alistair Dewhirst said: “The reality is that more houses will produce more cars, and there seems to be no concrete plans to deal with the large amount of traffic issues that we have already.”

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Cllr Humphrey Clemens said: “There is no easy answer as you cannot build your way out of traffic congestion, as building bigger roads just means bigger congestion. But we will do what we can to alleviate the problem. We know that the A379 from Teignmouth to Exeter is not fit for purpose, but has been fit for purpose for a long time.

Cllr Humphrey Clemens

“It is recognised by planners that the A379 does need improvements before any extra development takes place for the area that it feeds, but we need to work together as we have cross boundary problems and need cross boundary solutions.”

Cllr Jung said that there was no point in having all these fantastic new sports facilities if people just spend hours sitting in a traffic jam getting to them.

And Cllr Mike Howe said that one crash on the roads in Exeter means that traffic all around the area is gridlocked for hours, so traffic needs to be taking off the roads.

AND PUBLIC TRANSPORT HAS TO IMPROVE AND TAKE TRAFFIC AWAY FROM THE ROADS

Outline the vision to councillors, Simon Thornley, Business Manager for Strategic Place said that going forward there would be an emphasis on sustainable transport nodes, such as park-and-ride and cycling, with the proposals including doubling the number of car parking spaces serving Exeter in park-and-ride sites on all main corridors and a comprehensive network of walking and cycling routes.

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He said: “We need to reduce car dependency and dominance and grabbing all we can through emerging and new technology. One objective looking forward is a joint ticketing between all forms of transit and cycling and car clubs, so a combined ticket, probably an app on phone, that includes multiple nodes in one journey is an idea going forward.”

He added: “The more rural you get and further from Exeter, the more people rely on the car. Any strategy that puts more housing in rural areas would just increase car usage, so the inevitable conclusion is that the strategy is more urban-based, but the halfway house is park-and-ride. There is no easy solution to get people door-to-door, but will be possible to get a door-to-edge and then a park-and-ride from the edge to the city.”

Matford Park and Ride

And Cllr Stuart Barker said that issues around transport won’t be solved by existing thinking about how you get to your final destination.

He said: “The answer has to be transport exchange hubs, be it park-and-ride or something else. People coming from the rural areas need to get to the largest local town and then get public transport from there into the city, so bus journeys will have to change.

“One idea is that a number of routes into the city of Exeter could be car free. Unless it is quicker to go on the bus and not in the car then why would anyone go on the bus?

“If we get the transport solutions right, some routes might not need improvement, as we improve bus usage then there will be fewer cars on the roads. For example, if you live in Dawlish and work in Marsh Barton, can you get a bus to work at the time you want? Probably not, so those are the issues that we need to solve and the GESP must address and solve these issues.”

Cllr Susie Bond added that a passing loop on the railway at Whimple is urgently needed as otherwise anything that area simply won’t work.

THERE ARE SOME BLUE SKY IDEAS, LIKE A BRIDGE SPANNING THE RIVER EXE

Cllr Graham Godbeer said that none of the ideas around transport were aspiration enough, calling for a tram-based Metro system around Cranbrook and a bridge over the River Exe to be put into the ideas pot.

He said: “I don’t know why when Cranbrook was being designed, electric buses or trams that connect to Exeter were ruled out as being impractical.

The Exe Estuary from the air

“A bridge over and spanning the River Exe has been scoffed at for years, but I keep want to talk about it and it is beginning to make sense as a way of reliving pressure from the motorway junctions around Exeter. I want it on the agenda for discussion and we should have an international competition to design the bridge.”

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Ed Freeman, Service Lead for Planning Strategy and Development Management, said that the GESP consultation would be an opportunity for people to raise the ideas that they want to see going forward, such as a tram system around Exeter.

HOUSING HAS TO BE LOOKED AT IN A CROSS-BOUNDARY FASHION

For the GESP area, 2,600 homes a year are needed to be built, based on Government targets, meaning over the 20 years of the plan to 2040, around 57,200 new homes will be built.

No location for where the houses would be built, or which council area they would predominantly be based in have been decided, but councillors were told to stop thinking purely about their own boundary area.

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Cllr Christophers said: “Having a plan in place means we can get the infrastructure we want, as without the plan, we get the houses but not the infrastructure. Potential governments of all colours want more housing to be built and that isn’t going to change, but we have to do this boundary-blind as people live their lives across council ward boundaries.

As a result of East Devon District Council’s Strategic Planning Committee rejecting the GESP vision document for public consultation, further work will be carried out and the document will be revised before going back before committees at a later date.